14 Men, 190 Tonnes of Ice, 2 Days

The ice arena for the Barents Speltakel and Traavik.Info project ‘The Trial of the Century’ is under construction. In only two days, a team of 14 men pulled 190 tonnes of ice from Kirkenes’ second lake to provide the building blocks for Norway’s largest ice-sculpture.

The process of removing ice from the lake starts with careful marking and measuring before cutting begins. Then, with chainsaws whizzing through the frozen surface, the 1.5 tonne blocks are freed from the ice sheet and then plucked from the water with heavy lifting machines.

From early morning to the evening, the team measures, cuts and lifts – creating neat stacks of glistening ice blocks as they go. Working on the frozen lake is ice artist Peder Istad, Pikene på Broen’s Kjetil Nicolaisen, assistant ice engineers Marius Engan Johansen and Fabian Probul, along with Ilia Kuzubov, Aleksei Maklakov, Nikolai Terentev and Daniil Vlasov from the Taibola team who also worked on the Barents Spektakel 2016 Opening Show. Also helping with the work is Espen Mortensen, Sindre Sotkajervi, Frode Skavhaug and Henning Mortensen from Bygg & Maskintjenester, Espen Kling from Jakola Transport and Svein Karisari.

The Trial of the Century starts on February 9th and continues until Saturday the 11th of February, check the programme for more information.